Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Taylor Swift’s Swift Life app to shut down | UNLIMITED | CMU

Taylor Swift’s game-come-social-network-hybrid-app ‘The Swift Life’ is coming to the end of its, er, time on this planet.

Launched in late 2017 by mobile game maker Glu, its death was not as swift as some predicted. Since its launch, however, the app has been dogged by complaints, including that Swift herself has not been as active on it as originally promised.

Billed as a place to converse with other fans and Swift herself, the gaming element also allowed the app makers to flog in-app purchases.

Although it seems that the app was not quite the money-maker it had been hoped, an official statement confirming the closure framed the app as being something only ever intended to exist while current album ‘Reputation’ was being actively promoted.

The app is already unavailable to download anew and in-app purchases have been shut off. Users have until 1 Feb to spend any virtual currency they have in it, before the whole thing is switched off completely.

Swift and Glu were sued last year by computer services company SwiftLife, which accused them of trademark infringement and damaging its business by pushing it down the Google search rankings for its own name. It also complained of having to field angry emails from confused Taylor Swift fans who had managed to find its website and then set up accounts on its online life management software in error.

While it may be something of a relief for the SwiftLife company that Swift’s app is being shut down, that doesn’t necessarily overcome the issues caused by its launch and operation since 2017. The trademark infringement case is still ongoing, with a hearing scheduled next week to decide on the latest move by Swift and Glu’s attorneys to have the case dismissed.